Well this is it folks – the season finale of the third season of Jersey Shore. It’s been an up and down ride, but it all came to an end last night. As much as I was growing a strong distaste for the show, thanks in no small part to Ronnie and Sam, I can’t help feelings Thursday nights just won’t be the same without it… until season four rolls around and I can start complaining about the same old stuff all over again.
Last night’s Jersey Shore started off with a continuation of the drama we started getting a peek at last week. After being confronted about Arvin, Sammi once again denied having a romantic sort of relationship with him and insisted she and Arvin were “just friends”. Mike decides to settle it once and for all by calling Arvin. It goes about as well as you would think it would go. Arvin says he and Sammi never ‘hooked up’ but that they ‘made out’. Ronnie takes the phone and Arvin tells him the same thing. All hell breaks loose. Drama with Ronnie and Sammi? Shocking. Sammi decides to take the phone. Arvin calls her a liar for denying they made out. Sammi calls him a liar for saying they did. Sorry Sammi, I believe Arvin here.
While Sammi, Ronnie and Mike battle it over over Arvin, the rest of the kids start preparing the last Sunday dinner they’ll enjoy as a family at the Shore house. Somehow, they manage to ignore that’s going on them and prepare quite a feast. Despite the drama, they all sit down to eat together and toast that fact. Sammi and Ronnie are both there, but Ronnie doesn’t stay; leaving the table after what appears to only be a few minutes. Sammi – for whatever reason – follows him.
I sincerely couldn’t care less about this conversation. As soon as it started I was preoccupied with one question: Do either of these people know what the words “I’m done” mean? If uttered during a meal, it would mean you put your freaking fork down. If uttered during a movie, the movie is either over or you don’t want to watch it anymore. If uttered during a relationship in regards to the people you are in that relationship with it means you leave each other the frig alone. It’s getting harder and harder to keep these g-rated. Anyway, Ronnie says some stuff. Sammi says some stuff. Eventually she confesses she used to make out with Arvin or whatever when she was twenty-one. I mean, come on Ronnie! She’s twenty-three now. It was a whole other time. Ronnie tells her she needs to either ‘fix it’ or walk away. For the love of pancakes, walk away! What is there to fix? You’re both far too messed up, insecure and insane to be in a relationship together. It’s over. It is so done even the turkey is sticking a fork in it.
It’s Ronnie, Vinny and Snooki’s last day at work. Snooki decides to spend the day making clothes for her friends and family. Vinny decides to actually work because, well, it’s his job and he doesn’t seem like the slacker type. Ronnie, on the other hand, decides to use the opportunity to give his boss (and landlord) Danny a little gentle teasing by showing up at work in a t-shirt from a competing t-shirt shop. Danny responds by literally ripping the shirt off Ronnie’s back marking the first time I even cracked a smile during this episode.
Hey look! Another smile and in the same segment. After Ronnie decides to spend his last shift sleeping, Danny finds an interesting way to wake him up. Ronnie seemed to take the pouring of the water fairly well and things at the Shore store ended on a pretty drama free note. Danny thanked Vinny for working hard, Snooki for spending her whole shift making clothes and Ronnie for at least showing up.
Back at the Shore house, the kids start getting ready for the barbecue Danny is throwing – a sort of end of summer celebration. Pauly divulges that when he gets ready to go out, he starts by choosing his shoes. Â There is a short discussion over who everyone is going to bring to the party as a guest. All in all, pretty uneventful, but Pauly D is always entertaining so I won’t complain.
The barbecue seemed to be going pretty well. Everyone was having a good time – Pauly D was the DJ, Ronnie and Vinny were dancing, Snooki was dancing, some big guy whose name I forget was doing the worm and Deena was dancing with Vinny’s Uncle Nino (who was actually a trending topic on Twitter while the show was airing). When the piñata was brought out, Snooki was the first to take a crack at it.
While Snooki failed to whack the piñata, the blame probably lies more with her stature than her technique and no one can say she didn’t give it a shot. Jenni took the next turn and she nailed it. That poor piñata didn’t stand a chance.  I love Jenni and all, but I’m not sure I’d give her a giant stick. She kind of scares me… in a good way though. Not sure if she hit someone (possible Uncle Nino), but it sure looked that way.
As much fun as the party was – Roger even met Jenni’s Dad – it wasn’t without its drama. This time, the drama wasn’t all Ronnie and Sam though as Vinny started hitting on Deena’s friend Lisa and Deena objected. Deena is Snooki’s friend and she knows Snooki has feelings for Vinny. She also seems to want to protect her friend from Vinny which would, under normal circumstances seem crazy, but Vinny hasn’t been himself over the last two episodes. He has been far more aggressive and angry which just isn’t like him. He accuses Deena of being a ‘something‘ block.  MTV bleeped it out but it sort of sounded like ‘dock’ but that just wouldn’t make sense. Wonder what it could be.
Sammi and Ronnie were at the same party. Of course there was drama between them. Once again, Sammi starts it all. How can anyone not see she’s a troublemaker? It blows my mind some people actually take her side in all of this. I’m all for women’s rights and I’m all for a woman standing up for herself, but Sammi is a whiny, insecure, controlling and drama-seeking c-word and she proves it time and time again. She proved that at the party by pulling Ronnie aside and demanding to know if Mike is Ronnie’s ‘boy’. Ronnie stood up for Mike… kind of. He admitted Mike loves to cause trouble and seems to feed off drama, but he wasn’t about to let Sammi blame Mike for the mess she got herself in. Way to go Ronnie! It’s about time you grew a pair. Hope you don’t let Sammi cut ’em off and eat them for breakfast again.
Back at the house, the tension between Deena and Vinny is still in full effect. She doesn’t seem to understand why Vinny’s mad at her. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why he is either. It wasn’t totally cool of Deena to keep him from talking to her friend but to insist she’s a ‘dock’ block? I don’t see it. She’s right. She has stood back this entire season and let Vinny, Pauly and Mike hook up with whoever they wanted to without getting in the way – even helping them land girls a time or two. She says her friend is off limits and suddenly she’s a dock block?
*note: I know he’s not really calling her a dock block. I know he’s calling her the c-word that’s sort of the male equivelant of the c-word I wanted to use to refer to Sammi earlier. Dock just amuses me more.*
Things go from dramatic to dramaticer (sometimes with a show like “Jersey Shore”, making up words is necessary) when Vinny says he didn’t know Deena was ‘Angelina’. I’m sorry, buddy, but that was hitting way below the belt. Calling her a herpes infested streetwalker probably would’ve been less offensive, although the meaning is pretty much the same. Even Pauly thinks it was too much and ‘leaves the conversation’. I mean, he doesn’t actually but when does anyone on “Jersey Shore” really do what they say they’re going to do?
There are a lot of things Mike should apologize for. Exposing Sammi for the whole Arvin debacle is not one of those things. Regardless, it was nice to see Mike trying to make peace even if Sammi didn’t buy it. Also nice? Hearing Ronnie also thank Mike for apologizing. I liked the way Mike went about the apology to. He didn’t necessarily apologize for what he did, but instead apologized for the way he did it. Good form, Mike. Maybe you’re not the douche you sometimes appear to be.
While Mike and Sammi might be working on making things better between them – or are at least pretending to – things are still cold between Deena and Vinny. It’s got Deena down and makes for a very uncomfortable meal. Everyone’s quiet – not usually a word you can use to describe anything about “Jersey Shore”. Deena makes a speech and thanks everyone for welcoming her into the family. I’d like to see her and Vinny on speaking terms again. I guess we’ll see.
“Tonight is the night to party, get it all out. Freakin’ do every sin that you can, you know – have sex with an old man and steal a plant and get arrested and then do whatever.” Sounds like Snooki plans on having a good time.
Everyone’s dressed and loaded into the cab for the last time in season three. It’s kind of a sad moment, but they all seem to be having a good time before they even get to the club. Of course, things take a turn for the dramatic once they arrive, but it’s not all bad. Despite the drama of the episode, there was one moment that made me smile from ear to ear. Not surprisingly, it didn’t involve Deena, Vinny, Ronnie, Sammi or Snooki. No, it was Jenni.
Roger surprises Jenni by showing up at ‘Karma’ unannounced as it will be her last night in town. He decides to have a little talk with her about what their relationship is and where it’s headed. He asks her to be exclusive and she agrees. Jenni and Roger define their relationship and officially become boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a great moment. After what we’ve seen Jenni go through over the course of the season, it was nice to see good things happen for her. Everyone else seems just as happy about the news. The good vibe doesn’t continue though.
Sammi decides to hang out with some of her guy friends at Karma and it makes Ronnie nervous. While I don’t necessarily thing he had the right to get angry at her for hanging out with her friends, I also don’t think it was cool for her to expect him to ditch his friends to follow her around. Ronnie refuses to do that, tells her to hang out with her friends while he hangs out with his. Things get even worse on the walk home when she starts in on him about what he said at the club. He walks off on her and leaves her to walk the rest of the way home alone. Was it right? Who even knows at this point. Just more of the same old Ronnie and Sammi crap. I didn’t care about it at the beginning of the episode and I don’t care about it now.
Snooki met up with Nick at Karma (also known as ‘Pauly D Wannabe’) and took him home. She offers to make him a grilled cheese and yeah, he acts a little prickish about the whole thing. Whatever. Snooki doesn’t seem to care. She wants to smush and that’s fine with me. Sadly, Snooki can’t make a grilled cheese forever and Ronnie and Sam eventually came home.
Back at the Shore house, Ronnie decides he’s going to bed alone. Sammi decides to follow him and, once again, all hell breaks loose. At this point, I’m not sure that phrase even has any meaning anymore. All hell breaks loose with these two every single episode. The rest of the house seems, well, actually kind of amused by what’s taking place upstairs although Deena doesn’t seem to understand why its happening. I’ll tell you, Deena. It’s happening because Ronnie and Sammi would die of boredom if they went a full twenty-four hours without fighting.
Yeah, here we go. Sammi and Ronnie are freaking out on each other. I’m not sure why Sammi just wouldn’t let the poor guy go to bed like he wanted to. I know everyone saw a fight of this caliber coming the moment Sammi moved back to the Shore house, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to watch. It’s just ridiculous.
It’s a damn shame the public can’t take out restraining orders whether they’re involved in the situation or not. I would be the first in line to get a restraining order to keep Sammi the hell away from Ronnie. I mean, it wouldn’t so much be for me (or him for that matter), but for the sanity of “Jersey Shore” viewers and every other person living in that house. The above collage shows you how trilled the other people in that house are with Sam and Ron. Have a little respect for the people you live with and for the love of all that is good and holy in this world – break up and stay broken up!
As Sammi screams Ronnie is the biggest regret of her life, Ronnie runs downstairs. Mike, surprisingly, runs to his aid to offer his support. I’m a little surprised and it lead me to form a new theory. Mike has been pretty absent this season so far. He pops up ever now and again, but he isn’t really around all that often. When he is, he seems like a different guy. Perhaps Mike is outgrowing the show. Could he be maturing beyond smushing grenades? Sure he still likes to stir the pot, but I really think Mike is starting to grow up.
Sammi goes to bed shouting about how much she hates Ronnie and blah, blah, blah. Ronnie… just goes to bed. I will have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for Sammi when daylight comes, she realizes she caused the whole thing and runs to Ronnie with her apologies. I hope he doesn’t accept the apology.
With the drama of Ronnie and Sammi put to bed for the evening, Deena takes a moment to make Vinny two grilled cheese sandwiches. In my eyes, Vinny redeemed himself a little bit, admitting that he acted like an a-hole and telling her not to make him the food. She did anyway and we got to see a bit of the adorable Vinny we all loved so much. I hope he sticks around this time.
As I predicted, Sammi wakes up feeling bad about the night before and runs to Ronnie to apologize. I am surprised, however, that Ronnie’s still angry and doesn’t just spinelessly accept Sammi’s apology. She calls him her best friend and I can’t help but wonder who on earth would treat their best friend the way Sammi treats Ronnie. Sammi’s biggest problem in maturity. In a few years, once she’s grown up a bit, she might realize the sun doesn’t rise and set on her command. She might realize that she has to be good to people if she wants people to be good to her. She might realize a little respect goes a long way. As it stands, though, Ronnie isn’t willing to step back onto the roller coaster and the whole things seemingly comes to an end. She asks if it’s over and he responds with a simple “yeah”. I take it with a grain of salt, of course. I think “the end” means about as much to these to as “I’m done”.
Mike prepares the last breakfast in the Shore house for his house mates. Everyone comes together to eat and they all agree it’s a sad day. I don’t know. Something seems almost forces. I feel like many of them were tired of the show by the time the finale came around. Even so, there were still some pretty sad goodbyes; particularly Snooki and Jenni, with both of them crying. All in all, I’m not sure how I feel about the show being over for the season. As much as I whined about Ronnie and Sammi, I am actually really going to miss the show.
With season four set to begin filming next month in Italy to air sometime in the second half of 2011, I have to wonder what’s going to happen with the cast. Will Deena return? What about Sam and Ronnie. I wouldn’t mind seeing Ronnie come back, but I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll even bother watching if Sammie comes back. Ah, who am I kidding? Of course I’ll keep watching and so will you. I’ll leave you with a few quotes from the closing voice overs that I found to be interesting:
Ronnie: We both destroyed our time here in this house for something that was never real.
Sammi: There is no Sam and Ronnie right now. I’m alone. It’s not a good feeling.
Vinny (regarding Snooki): Will it be serious in the future? Maybe. I dunno.
What did all of you think? Will Sammi and Ronnie be back together and back on the show by season four? What about Snooki and Vinny? Will they hook up or continue being friends with benefits? Is Mike bored of the Shore? What about Pauly? Are you excited for the spin-offs? Should someone else have gotten a spin-off? Sound off in the comments below and make sure you come back for recaps of season 4.
